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The Elephanta Suite
The Elephanta Suite
Jul 1, 2025 4:38 AM

Author:Paul Theroux

The Elephanta Suite

This fabulous, far-reaching book breathtakingly captures the tumult, ambition, hardship and serenity that mark modern India.

Theroux’s characters risk venturing far beyond its well-worn paths to discover woe or truth or peace. A holidaying middle-aged couple veer heedlessly from idyll to chaos. A buttoned-up Boston lawyer finds relief in Mumbai’s reeking slums. A young woman befriends an elephant in Bangalore. We also meet Indian characters as distinctive as they are indicative of their country’s subtle ironies: an executive who yearns to become a holy beggar, an earnest young striver whose personality is transformed by acquiring an American accent, a miracle-working guru, and more.

The Elephanta Suite urges us towards a fresh, compelling, and often inspiring notion of India and its effect on those who try to lose — or find — themselves there.

Reviews

Destined to join the canon of great works about India

—— Good Book Guide

Theroux at his best

—— Today , India

Beautifully paced, sexy and disturbing

—— Washington Post

I still remember the electrifying effect it had upon me when it was published in 1969. At various stages of life I have become almost possessed by it... The book shimmers with life in every paragraph

—— A. N. Wilson , Daily Telegraph

A subtle, elusive novel making its mysterious way forward by side glances and half-gleams, by sudden small illuminations and half-hidden ironies, by a tenderness that is half-mocking and a mockery that is half-tender

—— Evening Standard

Exhibits extraordinary originality

—— John Bayley , Independent

Saramago can transform banal sentiments into unexpected profundities

—— David McAllister , TLS

Earle seems to have little trouble expanding his range from a three-minute song to a 300-page narrative... And though the novel comes no closer to establishing the facts of Hank Williams's death, it certainly reveals a good deal of truth behind it

—— Alfred Hickling , Guardian

A witty, heartfelt story of hope, forgiveness and redemption

—— Booklist
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